


Ambitions

by cosmogyrals



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-11
Updated: 2013-03-11
Packaged: 2017-12-04 23:35:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/716338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmogyrals/pseuds/cosmogyrals
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The story of Martha's journey to become a doctor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ambitions

For her fifth birthday, Martha asked for - and received - a miniature labcoat and a toy medical kit. When she was opening her presents, her gran asked her if she was going to be a nurse when she grew up. "No," she replied proudly, "I'm gonna be a doctor."

It wasn't long before Tish learnt to run the other way when she saw her sister coming towards her in her labcoat, stethoscope around her neck. Leo wasn't so lucky; he hadn't quite mastered walking yet, which meant that he was the perfect patient for Martha. One day, her mum came home to discover her youngest child covered in multicoloured plasters. "I fixed him, Mum!" Martha told her, beaming up at her. "Just like I'm going to fix everybody!"

"Of course you will, Martha," Francine told her, folding her into a hug. "My little doctor." She kept Leo - and the plasters - away from Martha after that, though.

Undaunted, Martha turned her room into a veritable toy hospital, full of stuffed toys and dolls suffering from some ailment or another. She removed appendices, bandaged wounds, set broken limbs, even delivered the odd baby or two (Tish consented to be her nurse for that operation).

Eventually, she outgrew her toys, but not her passion for medicine. When she was ten, she brought home a cat she'd found, one of its legs dangling uselessly, the creature miaowing in pain. She wanted to help it, but wasn't sure how; oh, she knew the leg needed to be splinted, but she was also old enough to know that such jobs were better left to the professionals. "But, Mum," she argued, tears in her eyes, "I couldn't just leave it there. It needed help!"

"Who knows what sort of diseases it might have?" Francine retorted, but when she saw Martha crying, still cradling the cat in her arms, she acquiesced and took them both to the veterinary clinic. The cat ended up staying at the clinic till its let healed, and Martha visited it almost every day, talking to the vet about medicine. She cried when another family adopted it, even though she knew her mum would never let them have a pet.

But she kept on with her interests, volunteering at a local hospital once she was old enough, visiting with the elderly and infirm to keep them company. It was there that Martha had her first encounter with the harsh reality of her chosen profession; sometimes, when she went to visit a patient, they would be gone - taken down to the morgue. She remembered each of them by name at first, a litany she whispered to herself when she promised to be better one day.

Her gran was in the same hospital when she turned seventeen. She took her acceptance letter to medical school to show her, beaming with pride. Gran squeezed her hand and smiled back at her. "I always knew you'd do it, Martha," she told her. "Someday, you'll be a great doctor, just wait and see."

The next morning, Martha came back to see her, but the cancer had claimed her in the night. It had been fast and painless, the doctor told her, and Martha had no reason to doubt him. He'd done all he could for her, but in the end, Death had won. It was just something that happened - to everybody, in the end. She buried her face in the pillow, imagining she could still smell her Gran, and cried.

She was near the top of her class in medical school; Martha studied hard, memorising everything she could, figuring that she never knew when something might come in handy. Every scrap of information might be needed to save someone's life someday. She excelled at all of her exams, was praised by her teachers - but she wasn't sure she was doing enough. She felt like there was something more.

And then she met a man who deserved the title she'd been working her whole life to earn.


End file.
